Obsession

‘She is in balance with the tempo and rhythm of the universe.’ -Rob

Amanda Robson’s debut novel shows the consequences of asking questions that you don’t want the answer to. After wife and mother Carly asked her husband Rob what she thought was a harmless question about who he would sleep with, it puts their lives as well their best friends and married couple Craig and Jenni, in a constant battle to regain themselves.

The book is promoted as one that Paula Hawkins fans would enjoy because it is a thriller that utilises viewpoint narration that Hawkins help popularise. However, it doesn’t compare to Hawkins’ thriller debut Girl on the Train.

The first parts of the novel manage to build suspense and intrigue as the reader witnesses first-hand how Carly has let her husband’s response to a trivial question consume her and motivate her questionable decision making. But in the latter chapters, as the story starts to go in around in circles and relationships are constantly broken and mended, most of the suspense is lost.

What’s more it’s difficult to empathise with their breaking down relationships when none of them really seem suited for each other to begin with. The devout Christian faith that unities Rob and Jenni, constantly pushes their partners further away from them and strains their relationships.

Each characters’ inability to properly communicate lends itself well to Robson’s use of viewpoint narration. In each of their chapters is where they are the most vulnerable, telling you things they refuse to tell each other, especially when they cry out to each other through their words. It often felt like you were reading their respective diaries.

The intensity that is garnered from this narrative choice can be lost between Robson’s unsuccessful attempts at poetic language which become worse at the end of the novel with the use of repetition that is meant to build intensity but just drag out a book that should’ve ended chapters before.

The extension of the novel past its prime makes the thriller that Robson was attempting be reduced to relationship drama. Even the bouts of revenge from the female protagonists, who the novel is truly centred around, lose its strength.

Though, Robson does create some truly good thriller moments in her debut, Obsession is more for people who enjoy reading about melodramatic relationships.